


Prince of Lies

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Category: Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Questionable relatives, Sassy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 21:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8816518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: Inquisitor Vallerie Desjardin had expressively said she was not to be disturbed. She wanted to rest. Alone. Unfortunately, there's one person that will never take 'no' for an answer, especially not from her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because it’s Father’s day tomorrow and I have questionable taste, I wrote ya’ll a fic because holy shit ain’t Vallerie got no time for this bullshit to come back from her pleasantly forgotten past?

“Madame Inquisitor.”

Lord Inquisitor Vallerie Desjardin glanced up from her dataslate. “Dariush, I recall mentioning I didn’t wish to be disturbed.” Her melodic voice bounced around the artistically tiled bathing area in the most unnatural ways.

“Indeed madame,” the Achaemenid serf confirmed. Librarian Sobek Memnon had bequeathed the senior staffer on her some years ago. She suspected the man was far, far older than he seemed. “You have a visitor, a gentleman claiming to be your father.”

Vallerie put her fashionslate down and rose from her beach lounger. “My parents have been dead for centuries, Dariush,” she said as he assisted her with putting on a flowing linen gown whose bodice glittered with iridescent beetle wings.

“I know, madame,” he replied as he fashioned the sheer cloth around her pale figure. He caught her gaze. “It’s why I came. A visitor who enters upon a lie is not here for idle chat,” he warned, repeating one of the many ancient proverbs of his ancestral home. 

_His and Memnon’s_ , she thought. Instantly she felt like an outsider, a fool that deluded herself into thinking she belonged. She shook the unpleasant feeling as best she could and shrugged on her coat, the soft fur comforting. “Very well, bring me to him.”

“That won’t be necessary,” another man answered, his deep voice resonating with the peculiar timbre of an Astartes and yet lilting across the full range of higher octaves.

Vallerie froze. She knew that voice. She hadn’t heard it in over a century, but she’d know it still from amid a legion of his brothers. “Vicious,” she stated but didn’t turn around. She felt his presence now. His powerful aura buffeted against her like the sun: warm, alluring, soporific. She hadn’t noticed it before. The reason why was terrifyingly simple: he’d not wanted her to notice. He shifted and she flicked her hand up across her shoulder, index finger leading. “Don’t touch me.”

His large, gauntleted hand hovered in the air for an instant, but then he grabbed her shoulder anyway and turned her to face him. He was clad in Death Watch power armour, though it had been daubed with pink, purple and what appeared to be straight up glitter. How nobody had questioned his presence upon Imperious was a mystery all its own. She wondered what he’d done with the owner of the suit of armour. And where he’d found glitter. From above the gorget an intensely familiar face smiled down at her, pitch black eyes squinting with amusement. She’d thought him dead, had seen his mutilated corpse. It’d given her nightmares for the longest time and heartache such as only the young and inexperienced felt. She realised she felt nothing now.

The Emperor’s Child hadn’t changed in the slightest. From his meticulously painted eyebrows and the grotesque scar disfiguring his mouth to the barbed-wire wound around his throat, he was still exactly as she remembered him. And why wouldn’t he be? A century was hardly more than a blip on his kinds radar. “Hello kitten,” he smiled as he leaned down towards her, his lips splitting apart at the corners along the old wound marring his otherwise perfect visage. “You are so beautiful still.”

The slap cracked like a whip. “You filthy, lying piece of trash,” Vallerie snapped. Her palm stung ferociously from the impact with far too dense bone, but that didn’t matter.

He slowly turned his face back towards her, still smiling. “I hope it leaves a mark.”

Vallerie gave him a distasteful look. “You’re disgusting.”

He made a content noise. “You always say the nicest things,” he remarked as he brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “I did miss you, you know. I love you.”

Vallerie pushed his hand away. “If I had received a crown for every time you told me that particular lie, I could have bought a small planet by now and called it my own.”

The most ridiculous pout plastered itself on his handsome face. “You break my heart, sweetling.”

She rolled her eyes as she turned away from him. “Can’t break what you don’t have.”

“Don’t be mean,” he drawled, his tone distinctly petulant. “We used to have so much fun, don’t you miss the time we spend together?”

“Like the plague,” she replied and sashayed back to her beach lounger. She refused to fall for his manipulative wiles. “Whatever the reason you lied yourself in here, I’m not interested. Leave me alone.”

He promptly followed her, his gaze moving from her swaying hips along her spine to her thin neck. He wondered what sound it would make when snapped. With two large strides he caught up with her. He leaned down and draped an arm around her slender shoulders. “That’s no way to speak to your father, kitten.”

Vallerie looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “Thát is, without a doubt, the most inane lie you have ever told me.” She lifted his massive arm and dropped it off her shoulder. “You know as well as I that my parents are dead,” she added as she fluffed the flattened fur of her coat. “In fact, I imagine you lied about that too and gave them a helping hand in that department when you laid eyes upon us.”

“I would never!” he exclaimed, his quasi-shocked expression almost as ridiculous as his pout had been. “I found you! All alone. You were so very small and sad.”

“ ‘Found me’! Right,” she replied as she sat gracefully down. She picked up her fashionslate and continued reading. “Leave me alone.”

Heavy boot steps moved around her and a moment later her dataslate was slowly pushed down by an armoured finger, revealing his imperfect smile. “I can show you it is true,” he said, sounding far too pleased with himself.

Vallerie didn’t believe him for a second. She slapped his hand away a second time and raised her fashionslate. “Go to hell.”

“Don’t be like that, kitten,” the Emperor’s Child continued unperturbed as he put a hand on her thigh. She could feel the warmth of his touch run along her nerves despite the power armour and steeled herself against it.

“Take your hand off me,” she replied without looking up. He had no intention to. In response searing heat flared up in his finger bones, a thousand needle-like pricks from the inside out. Vallerie lowered her fashionslate just enough to catch his black gaze over the edge. “Take it off before I melt it off.” He merely grinned at her, giving her thigh a squeeze. Vallerie scowled. Smoke curled up from the ceramite glove and then the black paint started to bubble and peel away. A waxy substance leaked from the creases between the plates. His eyes rolled back as he savoured the excruciating pain. Too late she realised she was giving him exactly what he wanted.

“You have improved!” he exclaimed as his eyes snapped open, all smiles again.

“Yes, I found an _actual_ teacher after our parting,” she spat and swiped to the next page.

“Really. Better than me?” He gave her an askance look before leaning on his elbow as he crouched down beside her. She could feel the lingering warmth of the superheated ceramite against her hip as he casually dropped his large hand beside her. “And what did you do with this ‘actual’ teacher?” he teased, his smile tugging at the scar splitting his mouth.

“I married him.” The way it wiped the smile off his face for three whole seconds was immensely satisfying. Vallerie smiled in turn as she lowered her fashionslate. “I’m an empress now and quite satisfied with my life.”

He squinted at her, his expression a grim promise of horrific death. It was gone a breath later, like a dark shadow glimpsed under the water’s calm surface. He rolled his eyes and pulled a long face. “How very droll. And I would know, I’ve been married a few times.”

“I bet you have.” Vallerie acted as if she hadn’t seen it. She was well aware that she probably couldn’t melt his face before he snapped her neck like a twig. She wrapped her psychi in bored neutrality, as she wasn’t about to give him the pleasure of feeling her fear. Disinterest would vex him something fierce. She knew he craved any response over no response at all. His nearness was intense, his aura soothing and inviting like the sun. And, like the sun, she reminded herself, it would burn in an unguarded moment. He had nothing to offer her but blisters. She had everything she wanted. Some of it, she’d gathered for herself. The rest of it had been gifts from her sorcerous prince sans white steed. She hoped Memnon would return soon. She loved him more than she’d ever loved any one. More than all those she had ever loved combined. With a thought she send a kiss upon the ethereal winds. Wherever he was, it’d find him.

The smile had left Vicious’ eyes, if not his lips. He knew what the soft aural breeze dancing around her was. It used to be that breeze would whirl around him as she looked up at him and smiled. Now it seeped away into the cracks of reality. “Where is he now then,” he asked as he drew circles on her hip. “This sorcerous ‘prince’ of yours?”

Vallerie flinched at his words, but recovered. She threw him a look. “Getting shit done.”

“Black Crusades are overrated,” Vicious remarked with a look that suggested it was beyond passé. “I’m much more interest in you, sweetheart.”

She gave him a wary look from behind her fashionslate. She was fairly certain he was only interested in her because she wasn’t interested in him any longer. And then this inane lie. He’d probably convinced himself and no one else. Pervert. “I’m not very interested in talking about me, particularly not with you,” she said as Thrax appeared from one of the far corridors. She smiled. He often showed up when she needed him, even before she’d psychically called him. 

Vicious too had seen him and his handsome face turned stormy. The Emperor’s Child was taller than the World Eater, but Thrax dwarfed him on all other sides.

“Ah! There’s my sweet beau,” Vallerie exclaimed pointedly as she rose. Thrax obediently leaned towards her so she could kiss his forehead. She moved her hands from his jaw to the back of his neck to unfasten the muzzle he wore. He snorted and nuzzled her neck, making her giggle. “You’re such a good boy, yes you are.”

Vicious  regarded the World Eater as if he’d found something gross sticking under his boot.

“Thrax, I am tired. I want to rest,” she said in deliberately short and simple sentences. “See my guest out.”

Thrax grunted in agreement and turned to the Emperor’s Child. He stepped in close, as if of a mind to bodily wrestle the other Astartes out should he protest.  “Come any closer and I’ll give you something to whimper about, you pathetic beast,” Vicious warned. Thrax halted, but growled low.

Vallerie made a dismissive gesture as she turned her attention to her fashionslate once more. “Oh, and Vicious?” Vicious glanced up as they strode out. “If you hurt him I will most certainly never look at you again.” 

Vicious squinted, but then it disappeared behind a smile. “I wouldn’t dare risk it, kitten.”

“Good,” Vallerie answered. As they strode away she glanced over the edge of her fashionslate. The encounter had shaken her more than she cared to admit. She toyed with a strand of her platina blond hair. What if..? She looked at the strand. There were plenty people with the same complexion, same general features even, all unrelated. It was a coincidence and perhaps the reason he’d ‘found’ her to begin with. She was no stranger to that Legion’s aesthetic. She watched her pale fingers as she twisted the strand. It was impossible anyway, Astartes were sterile. If they hadn’t been, she’d have been pregnant a hundred times over. She pushed the bleak feeling rising in her chest at the memory of Memnon confiding this to her back down. Vicious’ tall tale was just that, a lie, nothing more. He’d lied to her for her entire life and he lied to her still. He was a liar, the prince of lies.

Her hand slipped in something gross. She pulled a face at the waxy substance sticking to her hand. She reached for her empty tea glass and wiped her palm on the edge. She held the glass up and looked at the substance sliding down to the bottom. A frown creased her brow. “Dariush, please type analyse this for me.”

He accepted the bowl from her. “What do I compare it to, madame?”

She twined a strand of her hair around her finger and pulled it into a loop. Promptly, it let go all by itself. “This,” she replied as she gave it to him.

He inclined his head. “Straight away, madame Inquisitor.”

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


End file.
